An Arab sanitation worker who attacked a yeshiva student in Mitzpe Yeriho with an iron rod, causing a serious head injury which required medical treatment, is now facing a civil lawsuit for NIS 80,000.
The civil suit follows the assailant's conviction by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, which sentenced him to six months of community service, a suspended prison term, and ordered him to pay compensation and a fine.
According to the lawsuit, the incident took place in November 2023, when the Arab worker was with a garbage truck driver and a minor. The Jewish youth asked whether the worker was Jewish or Arab, prompting the minor to throw at him a metal rod used for lifting dumpsters. A physical confrontation followed, during which the Arab worker seized the rod and used it to strike the Jewish student in the head. The blow caused a five-centimeter gash that required staples at the hospital.
Following the criminal conviction for assault causing actual bodily harm, the civil suit was filed seeking damages for pain, suffering, emotional distress, and trauma experienced by the victim.
Attorney Haim Bleicher of the Honenu legal organization, who represents the plaintiff, stated: “This was an act could have ended in far more serious harm. The attack was motivated by clear antisemitism, and the only ‘crime’ of the victim was being Jewish. We demand that the Arab attacker pay for his actions. Every Islamic terrorist must know that Jewish blood is not free.”